by Rachel Mines

“The Rivals” and Other Stories
Written by Jonah Rosenfeld
Translated from the Yiddish by Rachel Mines
Published by Syracuse University Press, 2020
ISBN 978-0-8156-1120-2

Purchase this book: https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/3032/rivals-and-other-stories-the/

“The Rivals” and Other Stories comprises nineteen stories by Yiddish writer Jonah Rosenfeld selected from collections originally published in 1924, 1929, and 1955. Rosenfeld was a prolific and popular writer, but because he wrote only in Yiddish, he was all but forgotten after his death, as the number of Yiddish speakers worldwide declined sharply after the Holocaust. One hundred years after these stories were written, in our time of social and physical isolation, culture clash, fragmenting communities, and rapid social change, Rosenfeld’s stories have a particular resonance.

Rosenfeld’s stories challenge the idea that Yiddish literature is quaint and old-fashioned, an idealized portrait of a way of life that has now vanished. His fiction presents a nuanced and challenging perspective on prewar Jewish life in both Europe and America. His characters are typically women, children, older people, immigrants, and others who are alienated and impoverished—financially, socially, and spiritually. They are solitary individuals who struggle to build bridges between themselves and the hostile, rapidly changing world around them.

Rosenfeld was a self-taught writer whose early life, marked by deprivation and brutality, influenced his subject matter and style. He was known as a psychological writer, an author who dove deep into his characters’ psyches to explore their subconscious feelings and desires. Rosenfeld’s stories are like Greek tragedies: the protagonists fail in their quests for love, belonging, and security, not due to external forces, but because of internal, self-defeating habits of thought of which they are not consciously aware.

As a translator and educator—I taught at the postsecondary level for over twenty years—I found that Yiddish literature in general, and Rosenfeld’s stories in particular, resonated with my students. Almost none of them were Jewish, but many were immigrants, or the children of immigrants, who were themselves struggling with many of the issues that Rosenfeld’s stories address. Students eagerly discussed Rosenfeld’s understanding of gender roles, culture clash, prejudice, and intergenerational conflict. They marveled that these 100-year-old stories were relevant to their lives, wondered where they could find similar stories, and wanted to know more about Yiddish and Jewish culture.

“The Rivals” and Other Stories addresses many concerns that are deeply relevant to us today. Rosenfeld’s psychological insight into his characters make the stories quirky, interesting, and relatable. And for those teachers among us, the stories are enjoyable to teach and meaningful to students.

Author bio: Jonah Rosenfeld (1881–1944) was born into a poor family in the village of Chortoryisk, Ukraine. His parents died before his thirteenth birthday, after which he was apprenticed to a woodworker who abused him cruelly. A self-taught writer, Rosenfeld emigrated to New York in 1921, where he became a respected contributor to the Yiddish newspaper Forverts.

Translator bio: After receiving her PhD in English in 2000, Rachel Mines taught university-level English language and literature until her retirement in 2020. She has been translating Yiddish literary fiction since 2016. Her second collection of Rosenfeld’s stories, “A Plague of Cholera” and Other Stories by Jonah Rosenfeld, is forthcoming from Syracuse University Press.

Keywords: Yiddish, Ukraine, short stories, psychological fiction, loneliness

Podcast: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/the-shmooze/265-rosenfeld-and-rivals-rachel-mines-talks-translation

Interview with the translator: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/archival-recordings/recorded-programs/ybcr-nybc-ybcr-1078/translator-rachel-mines-and-rivals-and-other-stories

Video trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V56l-ZZtw0k

Reviews:

https://forward.com/yiddish/447128/a-yiddish-writer-for-todays-young-american-jews/ (Review in Yiddish)

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/return-of-the-thief-sholem-aleichem-moshkele (see about halfway through the article)

Click to access ajlnewsreviews_2020_12_2021_01.pdf

(see p. 43)

Excerpt: https://jewishcurrents.org/in-a-crowded-place

Recognition and awards: “The Rivals” and Other Stories was the translator’s project as a participant in the Yiddish Book Center’s Translation Fellowship, 2016. The book was selected as a Yiddish Book Center Great Jewish Books Club pick in 2022.